Wizard
The wizard is one of the roles in NetHack. Wizards can be either neutral or chaotic, and can be humans, elves, gnomes or orcs. The guidebook says of them: Wizards start out with a knowledge of magic, a selection of magical items, and a particular affinity for dweomercraft. Al- though seemingly weak and easy to overcome at first sight, an ex- perienced Wizard is a deadly foe. Wizards are relatively poor fighters with low HP and strength, but are the best spellcasters in the game. All categories of spells are unrestricted to them. They can also write unidentified scrolls and spellbooks (with a magic marker) more easily than any other class. Wizards with high intelligence are granted reduced-hunger casting. Wizards cannot use two weapons. Wizards' special spell is Magic missile, and they have no bonus or penalty for emergency spells. Wizards can get Expert in the weapon skills of dagger, quarterstaff, and dart, as well as the attack, divination, escape, and matter spells. They can also become Skilled at Cleric, Healing, and Enchantment spells. Intrinsics *Exp level 8: teleport at will if the wizard has teleportitis *Exp level 15: warning *Exp level 17: teleport control Rank titles The status line shows you to be one of the following ranks when you reach the specified experience level: *XL 1-2: Evoker *XL 3-5: Conjurer *XL 6-9: Thaumaturge *XL 10-13: Magician *XL 14-17: Enchanter/Enchantress *XL 18-21: Sorcerer/Sorceress *XL 22-25: Necromancer *XL 26-29: Wizard *XL 30: Mage Skills It takes 6 skill slots to reach Expert in daggers, and 20 slots to max out all the spellcasting skills: 3x2 slots for the Skilled spells, 4x4 slots for the Expert spells, minus the 2 points already in attack and enchantment. This means that a level 30 Wizard who chooses to enhance all spellcasting skills to maximum should have 3 slots free to spend on other skills, such as unrestricted artifact weapon skills. As part of skill slot management, a Wizard should defer enhancing any spell skill until there comes a point when doing so would provide an in-game benefit. The benefits from enhancing a spell skill are that it lowers spell failure rates, and (depending on the spell) sometimes augments the effects of a spell. When advancing spell skills, it is a good idea to check which spells you have in each school, and make sure that at least one of your spells would benefit from being enhanced, before using up the skill slot. It is important to note that a great many spells enjoy augmented effects when advancing from Basic to Skilled (notably, fireball, cone of cold, remove curse, and detect monsters), but only two spells enjoy augmented effects when going from Skilled to Expert (namely, jumping and protection), and of these two, Wizards can only become Expert in jumping. Therefore, for spells other than escape spells, a Wizard gains no benefit from advancing to Expert unless there is a currently known high level spell (e.g. finger of death, cancellation, polymorph) whose failure rate would be lowered by such advancement. In particular, there is almost never any need to advance divination spells to expert, since all divination spells have the same effects at skilled as at expert, and none of the divination spells are of very high spell level. The same goes for enchantment spells and healing spells (except for the useless restore ability). The skill slots saved thereby are valuable to have available for weapons, especially early in the game. Starting equipment *quarterstaff *cloak of magic resistance *three random scrolls (not fire, amnesia, or blank paper) *two spellbooks. **The first is always a blessed spellbook of force bolt, **the other is random from the list of spellbooks level 3 and lower. *three random potions (not hallucination or acid) *two random rings (not aggravate monster, hunger, or +0 chargeable rings) *random wand (not wishing or nothing; wands of polymorph combined with a ring of polymorph control are also not allowed.) *if an Elf, random non-magical musical instrument *20% chance of magic marker *20% chance of blindfold SLASH'EM In SLASH'EM, Wizards start with four spellbooks, with one book chosen randomly from each of: * force bolt or sleep * resist poison or resist sleep * detect food, detect monsters, light, knock or wizard lock * magic missile, confuse monster, slow monster, cure blindness, endure heat, endure cold, insulate, create monster or healing Sporkhack In Sporkhack, a wizard starts with a cloak of protection in lieu of the cloak of magic resistance, and also is guaranteed to start with a spellbook of protection. Strategy * Before a decent supply of better thrown weapons is found, a Wizard may find it useful to cast force bolt at a boulder, pick up the resulting stones (as many as can be carried while staying unburdened), and quiver them. Thrown stones can kill many low-level monsters before they reach the Wizard, and inflict substantial damage on those that are not killed outright. Of course, stones should be replaced with darts, daggers, or other missiles as they become available. * Wizards should dump their quarterstaff early on for any kind of non-cursed dagger unless trying for the Staff of Aesculapius via wishing. Note, though, that many Wizards start with such poor fighting skills that hitting with a dagger, with Unskilled ability in daggers, can be very difficult before experience level 5 or so. Two tricks are to name Sting and train it on goblins for the +d5 to hit bonus, or allow yourself to be engulfed by a fog cloud and strike automatically from inside. * They can and should reach expert in dagger. They need not enhance even their attack spell until this is done. At expert, it is possible to throw up to three daggers in a turn, so it is recommended to acquire a good number of daggers that stack together. Wizards may find it worthwhile to make a brief sortie into the Gnomish Mines, where daggers are plentiful. Also, daggers have a bonus to hit, which makes it easier to train with using them. Elven daggers are especially useful. Note that the Gnomish Mines can be dangerous for low-level Wizards, and deeper descent should perhaps be postponed until after Sokoban has been completed. * Since survival is so much more important than sorcery, early game wizards should try on each and every non-cursed piece of armor they find in order reduce armor class as quickly as possible. They rely on volleys of daggers instead of attack spells. The metal armor can then gradually be replaced with leather and/or dragon armor. In this sense, the early game wizard is ironically the most un-magical of all roles. * Compared to Wizards, roles such as the Valkyrie or Barbarian are almost mono-chromatic in combat--they bash with their primary weapons and only switch tactics for special occasions. Wizards need to develop a much more diverse toolkit, since so many monsters are resistant to one or more forms of magical attack. A fire resistant opponent may be especially vulnerable to cold attacks; an opponent with reflection can probably still be stoned by a cockatrice corpse. The wizard player should read the wiki entries for new opponents to learn their immunities and weaknesses (so as to not waste time zapping demons with finger of death) and never be reluctant to make a tactical retreat and come back better-prepared. Ultimately, nothing has "stab resistance" — even shades will succumb to an enchanted or silver weapon — so a wizard should always have a good physical combat option to fall back on. * They should sacrifice as soon as they find an altar, as their first guaranteed gift is Magicbane. Magicbane is an excellent weapon, and in addition is an athame with which you can engrave Elbereth in the stone in one move, without dulling. Furthermore, wielding it catches and neutralizes 95% of all curses, great when confronting a spellcaster. Actually, at high levels and after the quest, spells are much better for attack than any weapon. So keep Magicbane wielded at all times, and use spells for attack. The Sokoban scrolls of earth can be used to safely convert the minetown altar and get Magicbane. * The Wizard quest is fairly easy, the Dark One is a pushover (despite the fact that he ignores Elbereth, by the time you face him, you'll likely be strong enough to survive against his attacks anyways), and the reward -- The Eye of the Aethiopica -- is so fantastically useful that a Wizard should probably go on the quest as soon as possible. One of the many things the Eye does is vastly enhance strategic mobility through the Mazes of Menace -- in particular, getting the player out of trouble in an instant. Many Wizards set up a base camp on level 1 of Sokoban and leave most of their worldly possessions there, going back whenever they need to read a spellbook or pick up more food. Note that adjacent monsters may follow the wizard through the Eye's magical portal, but this also has its uses -- such as luring Wraiths out of a graveyard level. * If you have found the quest portal, but are not yet level 14, be aware that the first level of the quest, the Lonely Tower, is often well-provided with wraiths. You may be able to gain a few levels and reach XL 14 before you meet your quest leader. * They should try to read any non-cursed spellbook as soon as they find it. They will be warned of any chances of failure. They also have higher intelligence, which makes it easy to read spellbooks. Combining the two, they can start reading uncursed level 1 spellbooks at XL1. * If a wizard starts with a wand of polymorph, they may consider polymorphing their starting force bolt spellbook. Since it is blessed, the resulting polymorphed books will also be blessed and will automatically be readable (though not necessarily castable) to the wizard. Adding a new spell to your repository never causes the book to be too faint to be read anymore, even if it has been polymorphed or read four times. However, multiple polymorphing will eventually destroy the spellbook. As an additional incentive, it tends to be very easy to find replacement force bolt spellbooks in wizard bones files (though you will have to make sure it's noncursed before reading it.) They can polymorph their starting kitten at the same time, often ending up with something much stronger for an early pet. * In the mid-game, it is common for wizards who have the correct spells (magic missile and create monster) to find an altar with a priest(ess) and continually create monsters, and offer the high level ones to their god to increase luck and hit points. The large number of monsters killed also means a large number of items, which usually results in a few good potions, scrolls, wands, and some other magical items. * The helm of brilliance is a favorite helmet for spellcasters, but wizards might be better off skipping it. For starters, their spellcasting failure rates are usually low enough to cast any spell they need without boosting their intelligence past 18. They will also have little need for the enhanced Power recovery, since their quest artifact gives much faster recovery anyway. Wizards are probably better off trying for the cornuthaum -- it can safely be enchanted to +7, and gives the wearer clairvoyance as well as a boost to Charisma. Failing a cornuthaum, the next best choice may be an elven leather helm, which can also be enchanted to +7. Just be careful when reading a scroll of earth -- boulders can take away up to 20 hit points if they fall on your head. * Wizards depend on spellcasting and spellbook reading, but start with no food, so they often have hunger problem in early game. Remember to always eat corpses and #pray when Weak — saving your food rations for when you cannot pray. Note that not only can wizards begin with a ring of slow digestion, they also can begin with hungerless casting as long as they have 17 or greater Intelligence. * Because there can be so much variation in the starting equipment, it makes them a common class for reroll scummers. * It is a good idea to go down to the Oracle level and break the "historic" statues there in search of spare spellbooks, then come back up to the Gnomish Mines. * Some people advocate keeping your experience level deliberately lower in the early game. This is largely a myth: armor class is what counts. As you level up, you will have more power available to cast force bolt at all. Gains or not-gains in both dungeon level and experience level are largely balanced out with monster difficulty. However, gaining levels deliberately is a sucker's game; monsters get harder, but you don't profit as much from skill slots or increased your damage output as fighter classes would. The easiest way to prevent yourself from over-leveling is to allow your pet to kill as many monsters as is feasible, although one would be wise to still gain a few levels for the additional survivability and spell power capacity. These constraints are loosened when you learn magic missile, get Magicbane, or obtain some other offensive upgrade. * If you can afford the longer prayer timeouts, it is a good idea to get crowned as soon as you are able to reliably do finger of death, because it is an invaluable spell (especially in the Elemental Planes). Encyclopedia entry Category:Roles